I am sick of the firmware deal, and really considering one of the PS3's...

My question for you, do I buy the 40Gb for $399 or drop the extra hundred (which is not a financial issue to me) for the 80Gb Motorsports pack and get a better machine and game that looks pretty bad arsh....

Buy the 60 or 80gb version. They have a better chip in it and if at all interesting to you, they are backwards compatible with PS2 games. I say forget the 40GB price-dropped player because they skimped on some of the internal electronics for sure.

You're asking the wrong guy here if you are looking for outrageously expensive cable. I use a $10 HDMI 1.3a certified inspected 6 foot cable and $40 HDMI 1.3a certified inspect 25-foot cable from mycablemart.com in my system. Haven't had one hiccup in over a year. Knock on wood.